The Arrogant Artist Page 7

  He saw the kitchen door wide open and Lorna’s shadow there. Quite unaware of Mannering he moved towards the kitchen, his gun outstretched. Mannering simply put his hand forward, clutched and twisted the wrist, and made the gun fall. The intruder swivelled round in alarm and Mannering, filled with cold anger, struck him first with his right fist and then with his left, one blow on and one beneath the jaw. The man staggered back several paces, and then fell like a felled tree.

  He did not stir.

  Mannering turned, to see Lorna in the kitchen doorway. She was standing upright and the shivering fit had passed. Mannering went to her, held her shoulders, scanned her face which was now very pale, and leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Gently he led her back to the kitchen which was white and primrose yellow, with a glossy black rocking-chair. He pulled this forward and steadied her as she sat down, said “Don’t move, darling,” then opened a dresser drawer and took out a ball of picture cord, white decked with red. He cut off a length with a carving knife, then went out to the intruder, who lay flat on his back. Mannering hoisted him up, dragged him to an upright chair near the door, dumped him in and tied him to it, with cord round his waist. Then he tied his wrists together, behind his back, and did a reef knot.

  The man would not come round for five minutes or more, and even when fully conscious wouldn’t have a chance to free himself.

  Mannering stood looking down, actually moved his hand forward to take off the stocking, decided that Lorna needed attention first and crossed quickly to the kitchen.

  “Brandy?” he asked.

  “John, I’d love a cup of coffee,” she said, huskily.

  “Instantly done,” Mannering assured her, and plugged in an electric kettle. “I could do with a whisky-and-soda!” He went out, brought back both decanters then poured out his drink, made instant coffee, and laced it with brandy. Lorna, her colour returning, sipped it slowly and with obvious pleasure. For the first time Mannering sat down and watched her as he drank. She had always been beautiful, with her slightly arched black eyebrows, her high forehead, her full lips; and she seemed to grow more beautiful with the years.

  “How long had he been here?” he asked at last.

  “About ten minutes, I suppose.”

  “How did you manage to lock him in?”

  She told him enough for him to be able to fill in the gaps: of her fear and her courage and her desperation, as well as her quick-thinking and her ingenuity. And she told him that the man had thought that he had the Fiora jewels and had brought them here.

  “They are not,” Mannering said quite definitely. “I know they’re on the market, but that’s all. And this joker came right out of the blue, you say.”

  “Yes,” Lorna answered. “He gave me no warning at all. I was just about to ring Bristow because you were so late. John, wha—John! You’ve got a bruise on your forehead, and your cheek’s scratched!”

  She broke off, with belated alarm for him, while an aircraft roared, very low, one of the few nuisance noises common in this flat. She pushed the rocking-chair back and bent over Mannering, looking for more evidence of injury, and he began to tease and laugh at her, a measure of his great relief.

  In the midst of this, and without any warning, there was a click of sound outside; the closing of the front door.

  “He’s got away!” cried Mannering, and sprang to his feet and rushed to the hall, with Lorna just behind him.

  But the man was still sitting where Mannering had left him; head drooping, chin on chest, body slumped forward, legs stretched out. Behind him the door was firmly closed, while a sound of the closing of the lift doors came clearly through the quiet.

  Chapter Eight

  Knife Wound

  Mannering reached the hall door, placed his fingers on the handle, and then drew back. He couldn’t reach the bottom floor before the man in the lift, so there was no sense at all in following whoever had been there but every reason for seeing what he looked like. So he spun round, and Lorna backed away. “Camera,” he breathed and ran into the big drawing room which was on the right of the front door and had windows overlooking the street. The room was in Regency style, which Lorna loved, and it was Lorna’s decor, the curtains on brass rails drawn well back from the windows.

  He reached one window, threw it up, and peered out.

  Several people were in the street, two cars were moving towards each other, a traffic warden, off duty, was getting out of a red Morris 1100. No one appeared to look up. Lorna was suddenly by his side, a small Leica in her hand, and she turned the lenses and then gave it to him.

  “It’s on the right focus,” she said.

  He leaned further out, poising the camera on the pavement just below the window. For a few moments he feared that the man – if it had been a man – might have left the building already, but no – there he was.

  He looked young, and he had long hair and wore jeans.

  He stepped briskly towards King’s Road, his back to Mannering, who focused the camera just ahead of the youth and pressed the catch as the other came into sight.

  Then suddenly the man turned and looked round and upwards. For a moment his head and face appeared in the camera sight, and Mannering snapped again.

  “With luck I’ve got a good one,” he said thankfully.

  The youth saw him, too, swung round and began to hurry, then broke into a run as if he couldn’t control his fear of being followed. He ran round the corner without another glance, as Lorna leaned out, shoulder to shoulder with Mannering.

  “I wonder what he wanted,” she said.

  “The Fioras, probably,” Mannering said, drawing back from the window. “I wish—” he broke off, and for a moment was very still, so still and obviously alarmed that Lorna turned to look over her shoulder as if she feared someone else was there.

  Only the sitting prisoner was in sight, and he hadn’t moved.

  Mannering said, quite clearly: “Fool. Oh, what a fool.” He put a hand on Lorna’s arm, and went on: “I mean, I am.” He took half a dozen long strides towards the man, and very cautiously tipped his head up by placing a finger beneath his chin.

  The eyes were partly open; the mouth was slack.

  Mannering felt for his pulse, as he had for Tom Forrester’s not so very long ago, and found it utterly still. There was no sign of breathing, either. He looked slowly over the top of the prisoner’s head and saw the dark stain on the pale, washed-out blue of the shirt. It was beneath the left shoulder, crimson, and spreading. He drew back and turned to Lorna, took her hand, and said: “Now we have no choice at all. We must send for the police.”

  “So he—is dead?” She was not greatly surprised.

  “Yes,” Mannering said. “Now it’s a clear case of murder, whereas until now it was only murder attempted.” He went back to the kitchen and finished the whisky-and-soda, looked out of the back window, and went on: “I could do with an hour’s rest, but we can hardly sit here and eat with the body out there.”

  Lorna eyed him levelly: “What you really mean is that you need time to think.”

  “You’re right in one,” Mannering admitted, but at once stretched out for the telephone, which stood on a ledge near the big refrigerator. “But I can’t have it!” He dialled Bristow’s number, in Putney, but there was no answer, so he began to dial Westminster 1212, the New Yard number, and had to wait only for a moment. When the operator at Scotland Yard answered, he asked mechanically: “Is Superintendent Bristow there?” and then snapped his fingers in vexation and went on before the operator spoke again: “I mean, whoever has taken Mr. Bristow’s place.”

  “I can give you Information,” the woman said.

  “Yes,” said Mannering. “That’s the best thing.” It was nearly thirty years since he had first known Bristow as his contact at Scotland Yard; habit died slowly. Lorna was placing cup and saucer and glass to go into the dishwasher, behaving quite normally although probably not yet out of shock of the break-in, of the danger, and n
ow this sudden death.

  “Information,” a man said.

  “This is John Mannering,” Mannering began.

  “Good evening, Mr. Mannering.” The voice was familiar but Mannering couldn’t place the man. “You had some bother at Fulham tonight, I gather.” There was a hint of laughter in the other’s tone.

  “And now there’s more trouble at Chelsea,” Mannering told him.

  “Not serious, I hope.”

  “Just a little case of murder,” announced Mannering evenly.

  “Is it, sir! Then I’ll get a car over at once – are you at Green Street?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll send a car over at once, and also inform Chief Inspector Willison, who is in charge of the incident at Fulham. You’ll stay there until our men arrive, sir, won’t you?”

  “Nothing would move me,” Mannering assured him. “May I know your name?”

  “Chief Inspector Fell, sir,” the other replied, and immediately brought a picture of a youthful, sandy-haired man with lively eyes, who had once been at one of the divisional headquarters in the south-west of London.

  “Oh, I remember. So you’re now in charge of Information.”

  “By nights, sir. Yes.”

  “Nice to have a friend at court,” responded Mannering, and rang off.

  Lorna had been busy most of the time behind him. As he turned she was cutting through some appetising-looking beef sandwiches, and put them on plates on a tray – twice as many for him as for her. Next she opened the refrigerator door and took out a can of beer and put it on the shiny kitchen table.

  “It won’t help if you’re famished,” she remarked.

  “No. What were we going to have?”

  “Roast veal,” she replied.

  “Roast veal,” Mannering repeated, and looked bleakly at the door and the hall beyond. “Cold tomorrow.” He moved his chair so that he could look out of the window, into the blue sky with a few fleecy clouds as well as two vapour trails which made a long-tailed cross which furred out slowly and gradually merged into the colour of the sky. “Lorna, my love, we aren’t going to be able to talk much for a while. You know what it’s like when the police take-over. Did the man go into the bedroom or in here?”

  “No.”

  “Then we may be able to stay from under their feet,” Mannering said. “Darling—”

  There was a ring at the front door bell, and he put a half-eaten sandwich on a plate and slid off his stool.

  “They’ve been quick,” he said, and went to open the front door.

  But it wasn’t the police: it was Bill Bristow.

  “John,” said Bristow, “one of the senior officers at Fulham called and told me what was going on, and that Willison is in charge of the investigation and is treating it as attempted murder.” So far Mannering was between him and the dead man, and he hadn’t seen the body. “So I thought I should fill you in about Willison as soon as I could.”

  “A very good idea,” Mannering approved, gratefully.

  “I thought you’d think so. Willison is probably the best man at the Yard on art thefts. He has a far better technical knowledge than most about painters and periods and schools of art. But otherwise he is a cold fish. He won’t be either friendly or hostile where you are concerned but will keep you guessing, and most of the time you’ll guess that he can’t wait to clap the darbies on you.”

  Lorna said in vexation: “That’s just the man we need now.”

  Bristow looked at her over Mannering’s shoulder.

  “Hallo Lorna. I—” then broke off, obviously astounded as he glimpsed the man in the chair.

  “Bill,” Mannering urged, “get out while you can. I may need some help but if you’re here when the Yard chaps come, you probably won’t be able to get away. I’m anxious to find out all I can about the couple at Fulham, especially if there’s any known motive for an attempt on Forrester’s life.” He spoke with a tone of urgency and stretched out his hand to open the door. “Oh—and about the Fioras,” he added.

  Bristow asked sharply: “Why the Fioras?”

  “This man thought I had them here,” explained Mannering and opened the door.

  “The Yard has two or three pieces from the collection,” Bristow said, “and the present theory is that they’ve been held for years by a private collector who was interested only in possessing them; and have recently been stolen from him. No one knows names or anything else. You could call it an intelligent guess.”

  That was all Mannering needed to know for the time being.

  The landing was empty and a lighted Number 5 above the lift door showed that the car was still at this floor. Bristow pressed the button and stepped inside as the door opened. As it closed on him, he looked very worried, obviously wishing that he had time to hear more, probably wishing he could be present when the police arrived.

  He vanished from sight.

  “John,” Lorna said, in a helpless voice. “What has been going on? What’s all this about Fulham?”

  Briskly, Mannering answered: “A frustrated artist, a patient mistress, a bathroom and an attic full of some saucy and some erotic pictures, an attempt to kill him or an attempt at suicide. A man had a crack at me, too, and I chased him over the roof. This might be the man,” he added, and bent down to examine the dead man’s shoes and jeans.

  There were scratches at the toes, brick dust, two jagged and freshly made tears on the knees. The man’s roughened hands were badly grazed and some of his fingernails recently broken and torn; Mannering had little doubt that this was the man he had chased over the roof. The fingers of the left hand were heavily bruised and the skin was split across the knuckles: this was where the seat of the settle had crashed down on him.

  “Is he your man?” Lorna asked.

  “I don’t think there’s much doubt.”

  “John—”

  “Darling?”

  “What is the connection between this artist and the Fiora jewels?”

  “That’s a very important question,” Mannering replied.

  “You mean, you don’t know?” Lorna asked.

  It was not only a question: it was an accusation, or at least a clearly expressed suspicion: that in spite of what he had said to her, and in spite of what he had said to Bristow, he might know more than he had admitted about the famous Fioras. He could not blame her. He had been involved so often in cases which had started innocently enough but become dangerous and violent. And she was well aware that sometimes when danger threatened, he tried to keep it from her.

  If she had these doubts, the police might have them, too; that was probably why Bristow had hurried round: to try to find out when they were face to face how far Mannering was already committed. He, Mannering, could tell Bristow what to do, but he couldn’t tell Lorna.

  He smiled at her.

  “No, sweetheart,” he said. “I don’t know anything about the Fioras except that some have appeared on the market, and someone seems to think I have the rest. I do not. I don’t know anything about the artist and his sweetie, except that he paints, she supports him because she believes he is a genius. If he lied to me about his reason for coming to see me, he might also have deceived her.”

  “Why should he have lied to you?” she demanded.

  “He might conceivably have wanted to involve me in the rest of the Fioras,” Mannering said. “If he did, events defeated him.”

  He gave this time to sink in, his hazel-brown eyes very clear and teasing and at the same time reassuring. And as she scanned his face as if to reassure herself that he was telling the simple truth, the lift sounded at the landing, and a moment later the front door bell rang. As it echoed, he slid his arms round her, drew her very close, and kissed her full on the lips. Then without a word, he let her go and turned to the front door.

  This time, it was Chief Inspector Willison.

  Willison was tall and fair, rather Scandinavian to look at, with pale blue eyes and thin lashes; not an albino but much nearer
to one than most fair people. His features had a raw look, as if the wind and the sun had burned them and they had never quite healed. He had full, well-shaped lips, but they had a natural twist which made it seem as if he were sneering; or at least, sceptical and derisive. He wore a dark blue suit of conventional cut which threw his blondness into sharp relief, broad shoulders and a rangy figure; and he moved very easily, almost with a cat-like motion. All the time he listened his expression seemed to shower cold particles of doubt on Mannering’s story.

  He was briskly efficient.

  An ambulance arrived; a police surgeon came, soon followed by a murder squad including photographers and fingerprint men. Black marks were made on the floor about the chair, more were made in the study, and fingerprint powder was spread liberally. Willison himself took a quick look into all of the rooms, told his team what to do in the most precise terms, and then left them to get on with the job. He conveyed an impression of ruthless efficiency; also, of ruthlessness.

  With him, like a shadow, was a detective sergeant with a shock of black hair and a big bald spot on top; a scientist of a man who had a notebook and pencil and made his notes with casual ease.

  “So the man threatened to kill you, Mrs Mannering. Just where were you standing? I see … And he thought Mr. Mannering had the Fiora Collection … did you, Mr. Mannering? … I am very glad to hear it, for we have reason to believe some or all of the collection is on the market again – the unlawful market … Did the deceased say why he had concluded that your husband had the collection? … No. You say he, the intruder, appeared to be very nervous … And you knocked him out, Mr. Mannering. How many blows did you strike? … I see … And you left him here before calling the police? … While calling the police and relaxing, I see. There are perhaps better times to relax than when you have a violent intruder in your flat … Particularly as the second man broke in and – as we now know – stabbed the first … Do you know how he broke in? … He probably picked the lock, I see, and the night time precautions of chain and bolts weren’t in position … I see. You did say you thought he was the man who had attempted to kill both you and Mr. Forrester in Riston Street, Fulham, didn’t you? … So he was an attempted murder suspect … How often have you been to Riston Street, Mr. Mannering? … Your first visit? Really? Then if you haven’t been to visit the young woman Clarendon, Julie Clarendon, at her home, where have you seen her? … You haven’t seen her before today? … Come, Mr. Mannering, you really cannot expect me to pretend to believe that even if your wife is present.”